Do you agree that happiness is a choice and can be cultivated? Yes, of course, but… Let’s look today at the barriers that may hinder you from being happy and living your best life.

You know from experience that achieving happiness is not simple. For instance, did you know that we usually pay much more attention to the negative aspects of our lives than to the positive aspects? This phenomenon is known as the negativity bias.

To make things worse, there are four other obstacles to well-being.

Five Barriers that Hinder Your Happiness

Positive psychology discovered five significant hindrances that may prevent us from flourishing:

1. the ‘negativity bias’
2. the ‘duration neglect’
3. social comparison
4. the hedonic treadmill
5. lack of self-control

If you’d like to know more about positive psychology and these hindrances, I highly recommend reading Bridget Grenville-Cleave’s book Introducing Positive Psychology: A Practical Guide.

Bad is stronger than good…

Let’s focus today on the negativity bias. The scientific evidence is striking and – at first glance – rather disturbing. The psychologist Roy Baumeister summed it up as “Bad is stronger than good.”

In practice, this means we have a tendency – and a habit! – to focus our attention more on the negative emotions, experiences and information and give them greater weight in comparison to positive emotions, experiences and information.

… and how this impacts our lives

Consequently, we all easily remember an insult and take any reproach or criticism more seriously than a compliment or positive feedback.

Some clients I had to help even heard (!) and noticed compliments, approval, and praise. They were so used to focusing on what was ‘wrong’ and not working (and criticising themselves).

Likewise, negative emotions seem to reduce our level of subjective well-being more than positive emotions can increase it.

Fortunately, there are several things you can do to counterbalance this.

Your Turn Now

Please don’t believe me anything!

Sharpen your self-observation.

Watch yourself closely during the next 24 or 48 hours:

• Do you notice compliments?
• Are you open to receiving them and enjoying the feelings they ignite in you?
• Do you dwell on things that ‘don’t work’ are ugly or disturbing?
• How long are you affected by words that hurt or provoke unpleasant feelings?

I’d love to know what you learned about how we focus on the negative, whether through this exercise or otherwise.

Please leave a comment.

This article was written in 2014 and last updated in July 2024.